The Deal Economy

Enable has formed the Building Materials Industry Advisory Group to inform our development team as we continue to create software products to solve industry-wide challenges that are not easily addressed by existing IT solutions. The early versions of Enable’s flagship software product, DealTrack, primarily focused on allowing companies to manage supplier rebates. The software is aimed at those companies in which rebate income makes up a significant proportion of profit, and it provides functiona...

In our experience, many businesses that receive rebate revenue from suppliers, don't have the means to be able to check that it is correct. They are completely reliant on suppliers to accurately calculate and make the payments. Because they tend to record rebate agreements outside of their financial system, these businesses are unable to match the cash received against amounts owed from their rebate deals, and for that reason they don’t set up a debtor in the same way that customers are treated...

We are pleased to announce that our MD Andrew Butt has been shortlisted for the EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year (2018) Midlands awards in their "Disruptor" category for its DealTrack innovation.* Andrew co-founded software company Enable International Ltd in Stratford-upon-Avon with serial entrepreneur Denys C. Shortt OBE, and since its inception in 2000 has overseen the growth of the company. Andrew's strength lies in his visionary approach and he has applied this intently in the goods supply b...

When people ask us about integration, the answer is simple. DealTrack can accept data from anywhere so long as it is detailed enough. We aren’t tied to any particular ERP systems or EDI providers, and we have over 20 years integration experience. There probably isn’t a system or standard that we haven’t come across already. The bottom line is that if you have line item data on goods received, purchase orders and supplier invoices somewhere in your digital infrastructure, then you are ready to i...

This building materials supplier was struggling to reconcile rebate information in their unwieldy spreadsheet-based system. They also had an issue around extracting detailed and summary data across all branches and categories prior to the negotiation. They felt that they needed to gain control over rebate income and at the same time find a solution that would help them to improve their supplier negotiations. With insufficient accurate, consolidated information at their fingertips, the procuremen...

This business had used a bespoke system to manage rebate earnings for some time, but rebates were calculated at a very high level and were based on data provided by suppliers rather than their own data. They reviewed the situation and estimated that by making calculations at a more granular level of detail, they could significantly increase the level of rebate claims within the existing deal structures. They moved to Microsoft Dynamics AX for their core financial system, but it was clear from th...

This building supplies company has over 50 branches and is growing. They recognised that having smooth business processes would be an essential foundation for their growth plans, and whilst most parts of the business had been systemised, the area of rebate management remained an anomaly. They were using spreadsheets because their core ERP system (Kerridge) did not support their requirements. They approached Enable to discuss the suitability of DealTrack to their needs and were keen to discover...

With over a thousand branches and hundreds of thousands of stock items, this business had a huge issue with managing rebates. Everything was being managed on spreadsheets, and they experienced many of the usual issues such as version control and human error. They commissioned a firm of consultants to review their options and invited several software companies to tender for a solution. Their aim was to find a solution that automated as much of the rebate reconciliation process as possible and the...

This business manages over 1m stocked items, the majority of which have some kind of associated rebate deal. Within the first 12 months of operation they recognised a 200% return on their investment in DealTrack software. They had previously built a rebates module as part of their bespoke financial system. However, whilst this had been built to specification, over time it lacked the flexibility to manage every type of deal. As a result, spreadsheets were used to control many elements and inform...

Buying Groups, as the name suggests, are formed to give buying power to smaller independent companies through purchase consolidation. Whilst buying groups don’t typically have control over the systems implemented by members, they do need information from members in order to negotiate the best possible deals on their behalf. It has long been recognised that buying groups can have difficulties in committing to purchase volumes with any degree of certainty. That impacts both the buying group’s ab...

Rebate Management refers to the management of discount claims that are based on volumes of purchases over time. To some companies, that rebate is treated as a bonus. But to others, rebates form a significant proportion of their revenue and for these companies accurate management is absolutely essential. The management and processing of rebates is challenging, with significant financial risks if something goes wrong due to loss of data or human error. Many rebate arrangements lack support in fina...

Today's IT landscape in most large corporates consists of disparate systems: Cloud apps On premise ERP systems Cloud-based ERP Local systems and spreadsheets Others As a result, the world has moved from ERP being at the hub to integration services being the key. In this new world, out-of-the-box ERP integration is being surpassed by ERP agnostic applications that provide enhanced functions and shared data with ANY other systems. That is exactly how DealTrack has been structured. We have const...

Twenty-fifteen saw the highest level of merger and acquisition activity in the UK since 2007 according to research by Experian. In fact, over 6500 mergers and acquisitions were completed in the UK in 2015 with a total value of £433bn. This was the highest value of deals since 2000. Brexit, the US election and US legislation changes have been blamed for a slight downturn in M&A since then, but nonetheless according to Dealogic the average merger or acquisition in 2016 was $104.2 million, and...

For spring / early summer we have a series of three webinars planned to share more detail about our 3 step approach to profitable growth through: Mastering rebate accounting and maximising profit from rebate deals; Being prepared for and executing on smarter supplier negotiations; Collaborating with suppliers for mutually profitable growth. Throughout the series we will be providing examples for builders' merchants, plumbing, electrical and HVAC suppliers, buying groups, other wholesale...

In order to prepare for major negotiations with suppliers, businesses often have to extract historical data from multiple systems: buying groups need information from their members' systems, newly merged businesses need information from different parts of the group. We have seen cases where managing large volumes of transactions with (largely) manual processes, such as spreadsheets, can have a detrimental impact on profitability, cash flow, supplier relationships and ultimately the performance o...